AND ITS SELF-CONSERVATION. 153 



at a distance. A thing acts only "where it is;" and to 

 Carlyle's query: "Where is it?" the proper answer is: 

 Everywhere. 



Of course it is not everywhere in the grosser forms 

 which directly aifect our senses. On the contrary, as 

 must be manifest in what has already been said, it is only 

 the infinitesimal nucleus of a force-sphere that enters 

 into intimate combination with other nuclei, resulting in 

 the building up of "bodies" sufficiently dense and 

 unyielding to definitely impress the senses. 



Every one familiar with the action of a magnet must 

 see at once what is here meant. With the magnet there 

 is so-called "action at a distance," and this is rendered 

 visible by the visible eifect; for example, on iron filings, 

 the action taking place, even with a feeble magnet, 

 through thick plate glass. So also the effect of such 

 action becomes visible through magnetic induction and 

 all its peculiarities. 



Instead, however, of "action at a distance" in such 

 cases, the explanation to be given on the theory here 

 developed must rather be: That the force-spheres of 

 whose nuclei the magnet is constituted are, in their very 

 nature, as themselves constituted by the interaction of 

 attraction and repulsion, elastic and therefore subject to 

 condensation and rarefaction in greater or less degree, 

 according as the more immediate conditions of the nuclei 

 change; and that the magnetization of a piece of iron or 

 steel consists in the special condensation temporarily in 

 the iron, "permanently" in the steel of the portions of 

 the force-spheres more immediately surrounding the 

 nuclei, and thus, while not adding to the body as visible 

 or ponderable, yet increases its force-tension sufficiently 



